Black Xmas on the Plateau – Victims, survivors narrate tragic tales

Hannatu Dalyop, 40, Hannatu’s charred face is a testimony to the goriness of the bomb explosion that rocked Jos on Christmas Eve. Lying mournfully on her hospital bed she says she was exchanging pleasantries with a friend on her way home when the blast occurred at Gada Biyu. She says: “I went out to deliver […]

Hannatu Dalyop, 40,

Hannatu’s charred face is a testimony to the goriness of the bomb explosion that rocked Jos on Christmas Eve. Lying mournfully on her hospital bed she says she was exchanging pleasantries with a friend on her way home when the blast occurred at Gada Biyu.

She says: “I went out to deliver a message and on my way back I stopped for some few minutes greeting a friend of mine who I met on my way back, then suddenly I heard a loud bang but as I opened my mouth to enquire what it was about, another second bang came up and that was the one that caught me.

“I fell down flat but I was able to drag myself to a corner and entered a nearby house where I became unconscious because I was badly hit on the face, especially near my left eye.” The mother of two says she was devastated by the blast and expressed fear for her future now that she faces the possibility of deformity. “To me, life will never be the same again,” she says.

Favour Ekwem, 1

Just a little over one year old, Favour Ekwem cuddled peacefully in her father’s arms while he tries soothing her. From the look in her eyes she has no idea what has happened to her and the tragedy of her mother’s dead from the bomb blast that hit them both at Gada Biyu. Favour survived the blast because she was thrown off by the explosion far away from her mother who was badly hit by the blast.

Favour sustained burns on her tummy the pain of which her father, Celestine Ekwem says has been making her cry, asking for her mother. Asked how he feels, Mr.Ekwem says it was what God has destined and he has left everything in the hands of God. He described his late wife as a loving and caring person who made sure she kept her family and home together. “I would greatly miss her for the rest of my life”, he says, adding that one of his consolations is that his daughter was responding well to treatment and gradually recovering from the shock.

Mallam Usman Abdullahi

Abdullahi did not know exactly what hit him on the day of the bomb blast. His head is still fuzzy and it is not clear to him whether it was a second bomb explosion that injured him, making him to pass out or he was a victim of the reprisal attack that took place immediately after the blast at Gada Biyu. All he remembered is alighting from a vehicle where he saw the charred remains of people scattered all over the place.

He says he arrived Gada Biyu from Onitsha when it was already dark, but noticed after alighting from the bus that there were people lying on the ground in the pool of their blood. He recalls seeing slippers, shoes and other household items scattered all over the place. Just when he was about taking in what must have happened, “I heard a loud bang and I felt myself inside a gutter, that was about the only thing I can remember. It could have been another bomb explosion or I could have been struck with a heavy object by rampaging youths.”

Abdullahi is worried about his stay in the hospital saying that he prefers to “get out of this place so that I can go home and apply traditional medicine on my broken left leg.” He says: “If I allow them to continue treating me here (JUTH) I will be infected with tetanus, but if I go home, I can be well attended to by a traditional herbalist who can better cure my leg.”

Alhaji Muhammad Tasiu, 50

Tasiu is one of the victims that survived after sustaining injury on his neck from the blast that rocked Amigo Junction in Jos North local government area of Plateau State. For the 50-year-old livestock dealer, it was God that saved him. He says he was lucky his back was turned to the door where shrapnel from the blast hit him. He says: “It was God that saved me that day because when I heard the sound of the blast I thought it was a faulty transformer that exploded but the sharp piercing pain on my neck told me otherwise.”

Tasiu was hit by the blast at about 8pm when he was negotiating for the price of three young turkeys at Amigo junction. “Suddenly, I heard a loud bang which shook the whole building we where occupying,” he says. “I even though it was an electric transformer that developed some fault, but I felt a sharp pain on my neck and I didn’t even know when I ran out of the shop. It was someone, I don’t even know the person who dragged me into one of the nearby shops and we quickly switched off the light and remained quiet for about five minutes while we listened to the heavy gun fight that was going on outside, meanwhile, I could feel the blood trickling down my back from the injury I sustained.”

Tasiu says he was then rushed to Jan Kwano hospital but was rejected as there was no space to accommodate him. He says: “The driver who volunteered to take me to the hospital then took me to Bauchi Park saying he couldn’t go beyond that point, but luckily we got another vehicle which we boarded and it brought me to this hospital in Tilde.” Asked whether there were other casualties, Tasiu says, “I cannot recall whether there were other casualties because I was not too conscious and there was a lot of commotion outside. Though I learnt that the person I was with in the first shop was injured.”

The departed

Al least 32 people died as a result of the Christmas Eve blasts that rocked Jos. Among these casualties, the identities of some are known while the identities of others remain unknown. Further swelling the ranks of these figures are those who were killed as a result of the reprisal attacks that followed immediately after the bomb explosions.

In all, the victims were given mass burials. At the various burial grounds, it was a sombre atmosphere as even the living carry the unmistakable scars of the bomb explosions and the ensuing violence it has spurned in the violence-prone city of Jos where sectarian violence has been long running.

One after the other as the bodies were lowered into graves an eerie silence prevails. Only the chanting of prayers by the faithful is audible in the air. In the heart of the men gathered round the grave are silent tears rolling.

But in the eyes of the women, the tears flow freely, especially among those who have lost loved ones. Their plight is further worsened by the fact that they have to leave their homes with their children to seek sanctuary in military and police barracks from the attacks of rampaging youths on revenge missions.

The reprisals have further added a senseless dimension to an already senseless mayhem. The latest bomb explosion in the state is a stark departure from the pattern of previous violence in the state. In the past, it used to be clearly one group attacking the other or carrying out reprisals against the other. But as the portraits of the victims of the attack show, the bomb did not discriminate against any group as both Muslims and Christians were affected by its blasts.

But the bomb achieved its purpose of sowing fear and further widening the gulf between members of the two dominant faiths in the state. “It was not just the bomb that was tragic, but also peoples’ response to it,” says Ahmed Saleh, a Jos resident.

The perpetrators of the blasts chose their target very well, timing it close to a major religious festivity close to the hearts of Christians, the dominant religious group in the state. An earlier blast in Abuja on the day of the Independence Day celebration drew condemnation from all sides, its intended target of creating chaos was not effective. The Jos blast almost achieved that purpose. A religious conflagration in Jos has the potential of spreading well beyond the borders of the state to other parts of Nigeria where religious sympathies are usually high.

The two stabilizing figures during the time Jos was overtaken by frenzies of violence and attacks are the Sultan of Sokoto Alhaji Sa’ad Abubakar and the president of the Christian Association of Nigeria, Pastor Ayo Oritsejafor, both of them Co-Chairmen of the Nigeria Inter-Religious Council. While the rampaging youths in Jos were finger-pointing, blaming one group or the other for the attacks, the two religious leaders stood firm on the belief that the Jos Christmas day mayhem was not another new dimension to the indigene-settler crisis that has been rocking the city of Jos for years but rather an attempt by enemies of State to create fear and spread hatred across the length and breadth of the nation.

A very shaky future

At the moment, the already fragile peace in Jos has become more fragile, making it Nigeria’s hottest spot. The dreaded 2011 has now come and the elections is just few months away. Even though little has been forthcoming from the security agencies about the current spates of blast and what the perpetrators hope to achieve in the long run, what is clear is the blast has further succeeded in creating the impression that no Nigerian is safe anymore in his country. From Abuja to Yenagoa to Jos various groups are waging war against the Nigerian state, using the lives of ordinary Nigerians going around their daily business as expendable collateral.

So who do Nigerians turn to? As a nation of religious people their eyes are cast above to heaven praying for divine intervention.